Tag Archives: halloween

Our benevolent editor-lord won’t stop irritating me about writing something about Halloween for her quaint little website. Since I’m the master of having a good time, I offered to put together a list of suggestions for what you should be doing on the best night of the year, Halloween. If you don’t take any of my suggestions, you are a fool.

As a kid, I took being a pussy to extraordinary heights. Being scared was the only thing I was good at. Well, no, that’s not true. I was good at watching TV. And when everything scares you, being a pussy was a given in my TV watching. Before the age of remotes, I would sit right in front of the screen, always at the ready to bail on the channel when something spooky popped up. Considering that everything scared me, an outsider might’ve observed that my rapid channel changing might be attributed to a case of ADD or that I was just a child of the ’90s. I wasn’t seeking thrills, I was conflicted. Every day, I would force myself to participate in my favorite and least favorite activity at the same time. Being 3 – 10 years old, it was a little confusing. Here’s a short list of the things I was afraid of…

When you were a kid, did you watch the same movie repeatedly for weeks or even months at a time? Can you still recite The Lion King? Or Aladdin? I just name those because that’s what my siblings and I watched over and over and over again. Disney’s Hocus Pocus was also one of those movies we made sure my parents were sick of.

I told You Won Cannes superstar editor, Madeleine, that I was considering reviewing the children’s Halloween classic, she gave my her blessing and I think I actually started floating a little. Then I realized that I was already set on giving this movie a positive review based on nostalgia alone. So I decided to fix that and watch this children’s movie like the 30 year old man that I am.

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me what I believe the scariest movie of all time is. This is a very complicated question, but also a very appropriate question as we’re all gearing up for our own personal Halloween film festivals throughout the month of October. The first thing to consider is personal bias vs objectivity; am I answering the question of what has been successful at scaring large groups of people, or more simply put, the average scariest film? Or is my answer only what has frightened me? If I am only speaking from my own experiences with horror, things become even more complexly layered.

I’m not a psychologist or anything, but I’m fascinated by the topic of what it is that makes a fictional creation scary; what it is exactly that makes us squirm when we watch a film. So I’m kicking off this year’s You Won Cannes-oween coverage with some suggestions on how to freak yourself out. Over the month of October we’ll be reviewing lots of horror films, from new exciting indie horror to old-school video nasties, and lots of weird stuff that you may not have had on your radar in between.

As a result of Hurricane Sandy, I missed Halloween. As a result of my busyness, I was already terribly behind on my 50 Films. As a result of me not caring or having this schedule imposed on me by anyone other than myself, I’m just gonna KEEP GOING, RIGHT INTO HALLOVEMBER, which is a new month I made up for this year.

Halloween, as we all know, is rapidly approaching. Before we know it shit’s gonna get spookier than an Olympic spider bobsled team. While I have watched many more movies, I’m just going to post films 11 and 12. Why? Because spooky fuckers do whatever the hell they want.

So, at the time at which I am writing this, (aka, right now,) I have watched 20 films. I have reviewed most of them too. The thing I have been the most slow about is posting my reviews. That’s a weird reversal of laziness. I’m doing all the work except the little bit of html and pressing a couple buttons. But, you know how it goes. I’m busy and illogical. So here are the next five reviews! I have a new favorite film of the month so far too!

I really hope I can get through 30 more movies in the next 15 days, you guys.

Of all the classic monsters of mythology that have their own series of films, the werewolf is my favorite. Something about the concept of a man shape-shifting into a wolf (or man-wolf,) appeals to me on some basic, almost primordial level. I remember when I was a kid I had this Wolf Man costume that was stored down in our cellar. Every once in a while I’d go down, put on the plastic mask, and run around the cellar pretending I was a monster.

In the words of The Whitest Kids U’ Know, “October is fucking rad. It’s the scariest sounding month.”

October. It is my favorite time of the year. Fall is beginning, end of the year projects are starting to gear up, and most importantly: HALLOWEEN! I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t Halloween all year round for me, but it’s great that the rest of the world joins me for a month. And the best way to celebrate? Watch a ton of horror films.

For the month of October, I’m going to watch and briefly review 50 horror films. I intend to focus on a slightly weird grade of genre fare, favoring more obscure flicks. I’ll be watching a lot on Netflix, as they do have a pretty extensive library of horror, a lot from my own collection, Hulu+ and Amazon’s streaming library, DVD rentals, and definitely going to theaters here and there. I’ll provide all the info, so if anything catches your fancy, you can check it out. And you should! You should watch all the movies! But the question I keep being asked, by friends and family I have been talking to about this is: Why are you watching 50 films, and not just 31?

The Answer: because everyone else is watching 31. And I’m way more hardcore than that. I took a handicap for being really busy and started a week ago, so here are my first five films of Halloween.